"The West is facing a concerted effort by Islamic jihadists, the motives and goals of whom are largely ignored by the Western media, to destroy the West and bring it forcibly into the Islamic world -- and to commit violence to that end even while their overall goal remains out of reach. That effort goes under the general rubric of jihad."-- Robert Spencer

Thursday, December 08, 2005

The UN-Jihad Alliance

Getta loadda this. In a world where Muslim zealots carry out honor killings, gang rapes, beheadings, kidnappings, and suicide bombings multiple times daily, the OIC-dominated UN claims the the United States is eroding the ban on torture.

The U.N. human rights chief warned on Wednesday that the global ban on torture is becoming a casualty of the "war on terror," singling out reported U.S. practices of sending terrorist suspects to other countries and holding prisoners in secret detention.

Where they may go without halal meals and a personal masseuse. Oh, horror. Luckily, The Man was on hand to put things in proper perspective.

Louise Arbour's comments sparked an immediate rebuke from U.S. Ambassador John Bolton, who said it was "inappropriate and illegitimate for an international civil servant to second-guess the conduct that we're engaged in in the war on terror, with nothing more as evidence than what she reads in the newspapers."

Meanwhile, Arbour sticks up for the bloodthirsty jihadis in Denmark. Earlier this year, a Danish newspaper performed an experiment to fathom the extent to which Muslim threats suppress free speech. The contest called for artists to submit illustrations of the Prophet Muhammad, an offense punishable by death in much of the Islamic world. In September, the paper published the 12 winning drawings (here's one), producing the predictable gush of death threats; many of the artists have gone into hiding and the paper has hired armed guards.

The episode concerning twelve Danish cartoonists who were hired to draw caricatures of the prophet Mohammed for the daily Jyllands-Posten continues to cause unrest in the Muslim world. Today 56 Islamic countries [the OIC] are holding a top meeting in Mecca in Saudi Arabia, and on the agenda is a discussion of a united front against Denmark. Also the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour has involved herself in the discussion. She has written a letter to the 56 Muslim countries expressing her apologises for the lack of respect for others religion that the episode has caused. She has also asked the UN's racism experts to look at the case.

Weezie's "racism experts" will scrutinize the artists and editors -- not the head-choppers threatening them. This is the UN's top human rights official. I'd say the Jyllands-Posten has their answer.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan strongly defended the Canadian United Nations human rights chief Louise Arbour on Thursday against criticism she had no business second-guessing U.S. practices in pursuing terrorists.

In a rare rebuke of a UN envoy, Annan plans to take up the issue as soon as possible with U.S. Ambassador John Bolton. The secretary general, in fact, echoed Arbour's argument that torture must never be used to fight terrorism.

The secretary general has absolutely no disagreement with the statement made by the high commissioner...and I think I would reiterate that he has absolute full confidence in Ms. Arbour," Dujarric added.

Arbour said she chose the theme of "terrorists and torturers" to mark Saturday's annual Human Rights Day commemoration of the UN's adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 because of concerns the absolute ban on torture, once considered unassailable, is under attack.

Oh, spare me the righteous posturing. It doesn't take any courage to point an accusing finger at the U.S. (and Israel), because it's well-known they don't run around beheading apostates. There's a reason these sanctimonious tranzis don't criticize the OIC, and it's not because of their snow-white human rights record.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Wednesday cruel and degrading interrogation methods are off limits for all U.S. personnel at home and abroad. But she gave no examples of banned practices, did not define the meaning of cruelty or degradation, did not say if the rules would apply to private contractors or foreign interrogators and made no mention of whether exceptions would be allowed.

Because all the international law in the world does not require belligerents to reveal sources, means, and methods.

Arbour called on the United States and other countries to state clearly and in detail what practices they accept and don't accept in the interrogation of suspects and whether they operate secret detention centres at home or abroad.

She urged U.S. authorities to grant all detainees the right to legal counsel of their choice, "access without impediments or restraints to national courts" and international scrutiny of U.S. facilities including access to detainees.

This goes far, far, beyond what even Protocol I requires. She's asking us to treat terrorists captured on the battlefield as we would a US citizen caught stealing hubcaps. Besides, recent Supreme Court decisions have given Gitmo detainees access to lawyers and federal courts. Is she just gutless and incompetent, or actively agitating for the enemy? It's so hard to tell.